Saturday, October 30, 2010

Despite my secret suspicions that all shampoo bottles contain the same thing, no matter what they claim, I put a great deal of effort into choosing my shampoo. I want one that is just right for me. The problem is, when I find a shampoo I like, by the time it runs out the brand has reworked its formulae, repackaged, re-whatevered, and generally my shampoo doesn't exist any longer.

Also, judging by the range of shampoos available, I am the only Malaysian with hair that has a tendency to be oily. I mean seriously there is a shampoo for every other hair condition out there -- dry/damaged hair, dandruff problems, brittle hair, frizzy hair, long hair, coloured hair -- but none for oily scalp. I feel like the shampoo companies are discriminating against me!!!

Thursday, October 28, 2010

I'm a bit obsessive about my parking. I absolutely refuse to park senget (crooked) because I will NOT give anybody the opportunity to say, "No wonderlah -- it's a lady driver." I'm determined not to fit the stereotype.

Seriously, there is no reason why a woman shouldn't be able to drive (and park) just as competently as a man. It irritates me a lot that so many of them don't, to the extent that my entire gender is now tainted by this... this... notion of ineptness!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

I have two bookmarks folders called "To blog" -- one on my current installation of Firefox, and another in a saved FF profile (saved before I did my last OS reinstall). It's not that I have nothing to say, merely that I don't feel like I always have to say everything I want to say. In short, I have opinions but I no longer feel the need to put them "out there".

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Spent three hours today getting my car windows tinted. Before I bought this car, I always thought tinting was a sign of vanity; another way to "dress up" your car, so to speak. But now I've discovered that the tinted film can block infrared rays, keeping your car cooler... it can even prevent your window from breaking -- the glass will shatter, but the film continues to hold the whole panel in place.

So it seems worthwhile to do.

Aesthetics are only important to me up to a point. I've never liked the shape of the MyVi (bulky, with lots of bulging curves) but I might have bought it if I'd been happy with the way it handles. Having said that, I'm quite relieved I had a good reason not to buy it. I love my little Satria Neo ♥

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

When I first caught sight of my WUL car plate it immediately brought to mind "unordered lists", because ul is the HTML command used to create a bulleted list on a blog or webpage. Apparently I'm a lot geekier than I thought I was

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Even though Nicholas Negroponte is correct when he says that books cannot be distributed to enough people -- real books, that is, as opposed to ebooks -- he forgets that, currently, ebooks are not very convenient to use. Especially in the developing world, which he thinks will adopt ebooks quicker than First World countries, "because they don't have anything else".

He talks about sending a laptop to an African village with a hundred books loaded in it. "When we ship, with our laptop, books to a village, we put a hundred books on a laptop, but we also send a hundred laptops in, each with a hundred different books. That village now has 10,000 books. This is an African village without electricity." ("Then what do the laptops run on?" I wondered. The answer is: batteries and alternate power sources like car batteries.)

But it's hard to carry a laptop around the way you carry a book around, so even if you have a hundred books, that doesn't mean you'll read them. You're not going to stare at the screen for hours reading, the way that I can snuggle down in my favourite armchair with a book and instantly lose myself in a story.

The devices that do make ebooks portable, convenient and easy to read are still largely inaccessible. People talk about more books being sold for the Kindle (Amazon.com's ebook reader) than ever before, but the Kindle doesn't even ship to Malaysia. Without it, you can't purchase ebooks from Amazon, either. The most basic iRiver model, an ebook reader which you can get via MPH Bookstore or in Digital Mall and Low Yat Plaza, costs RM999. The iPad costs even more than that; and, like the Kindle, it's also not on sale in Malaysia, as far as I'm aware.

Plus, hard plastic devices aren't ergonomic and even though portable & convenient, they don't feel good when you hold them. Your fingers are pushed straight and flat against the back of the device when you grip it, which is tiring and awkward for the hand muscles. Books can bend and are easier to grasp (for this reason, I don't like hardcover editions either!).

So I don't agree with Mr Negroponte when he says that physical books are likely to vanish in five years. I think that's an extremely optimistic prediction. Just because the technology is there to squash more books than you could read in a lifetime into a tiny chip, it doesn't mean people will automatically or even naturally take advantage of the technology. There are more things to consider than that alone.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

You see, I already had a bit of my music organised into nice little folders on my hard drive.

THEN CAME iTUNES.

Omg it's all jumbled up now! was my first thought upon importing the songs to iTunes.

"iTunes sorts your music on your hard drive by artist. For it to be effective, you've got to let it do what it was designed to do," another friend advised.

"But I want it to be sorted by genre!" I protested. I mean, to me the genre is more important coz you have jazzy moods, rap moods, instrumental moods, pop ballad moods... you know what I mean.

"Sort them into playlists on iTunes."

"But I want to also be able to find them on my hard drive!"

"You can't have both!"

That's where the "megalomania" comment came in... but but but it's MY music! How can puny iTunes prevent me from organising it the way I want! *stomps foot, crosses arms, sticks nose in the air and pouts*

Friday, October 15, 2010

In my zeal to organise all my music on iTunes, I am on a quest to rip every single CD I own.

So far I've done 45 and I estimate I still have about maybe 100 to go.

Mr TDH unwittingly activated my OCD tendencies -- he showed me how, on his iPhone, the album's cover picture appears on screen when he plays a song from that album... so now I'm also fixated on putting in all the album artwork into iTunes -_-"

Sunday, October 10, 2010

I had set myself a goal to update this blog every day but it's clearly not happening. *sigh*

At the moment I'm trying to organise all my music on iTunes, which I've never used before. Traditionally I just use the VLC media player to play music & videos, since it copes well with a variety of formats, including .flv videos.

But I'm thinking of getting either an iPhone or iPod Touch eventually so it seemed like a good idea to start familiarising myself with iTunes. In the process I'm discovering some music I didn't know I had, and some that have me wondering, How on earth did that get on my hard drive? -- because I wouldn't ever listen to that -_-"

Thursday, October 7, 2010

I wonder if it is possible for something that is generally good to be not so good for you.

Today I read a lady's tale of going from being a homeowner to a renter, and in my head I heard my father's voice: "Instead of helping other people to pay their mortgages, you could be paying off your own mortgage and then in the end you'd have something to show for it." There's unarguable wisdom in that, the kind of logic that no amount of argument can defeat.

And my own practical mind wondered: "But what about when you're old and you can't afford to pay rent anymore because you don't have a job?" I don't live in America; the state won't help me. I don't have children that I might be able to stay with in future... although I do have a brother. I guess he's my contingency plan. *grins*

But as this lady said, owning a home is not just about paying the mortgage, it's also about "upkeep, manicuring and constant vigilance over disaster". Besides, I've never been very comfortable with the idea that I'll have to go into debt for 30 years just to own a home. I'm actually pretty happy renting. But then my dad's words of wisdom keep circling in my head...

Saturday, October 2, 2010

One of my Twitter contacts linked to this video. I cannot imagine how the artist did that! Painting on a surface where you can see what you're doing is hard enough, let alone painting on yourself where you can't really see what's happening... and the awkward angle of holding the brush... good grief!